J. V. Stalin on People's Democracy in China

February 22, 1950

People illiterate in terms of economics do not distinguish between the
People's Republic of China and the People's Democracies of the
countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe, let us say the People's
Democratic Republic of Poland. These are different things.

What is People's Democracy? It contains at least such features as: 1)
Political power being in the hands of the proletariat; 2)
nationalisation of the industry; 3) the guiding role of the Communist
and Working Peoples' Parties; 4) the construction of Socialism not only
in the towns but also in the countryside. In China we cannot even talk
about the building of Socialism either in the towns or in the
countryside. Some enterprises have been nationalised but this is a drop
in the ocean. The main mass of industrial commodities for the
population is produced by artisans. There are about 30 million artisans
in China. There are important dissimilarities between the countries of
Peoples' Democracy and the Peoples' Republic of China: 1) In China
there exists a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the
peasantry, something akin to what the Bolsheviks talked about in
1904-05. 2) There was oppression by a foreign bourgeoisie in China,
therefore the national bourgeoisie of China is partially revolutionary;
in view of this a coalition with the national bourgeoisie is
permissible, in China the communists and the bourgeoisie comprise a
bloc. This is not unnatural. Marx in 1848 also had a coalition with the
bourgeoisie, when he was editing the Neue Rheinische Zeitung , but it
was not for long. 3) In China they still face the task of the
liquidation of feudal relationships, and in this sense the Chinese
revolution reminds one of the French bourgeois revolution of 1789. 4)
The special feature of the Chinese revolution is that the Communist
Party stands at the head of the state. Therefore, one can say that in
China there is a Peoples' Democratic Republic but only at its first
stage of development.

The confusion on this question occurs because our cadres do not have
any deep economic education.